


Petite Soeur

by NoelleAngelFyre



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Gen, Missing Scene, White tigers and their little wolf sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 14:12:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17102102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: She names the cub Little Wolf, for she is to be of moon and night.





	Petite Soeur

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [And Then There Were Three](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9551729) by [NoelleAngelFyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre). 



> "Petite Soeur": French for "little sister".
> 
> A missing scene from "House of Rogues", discussing Celeste's first Christmas through the eyes of her four-legged sister. This piece is written from Shakta's point of view, which gave me an excuse to create the inner thoughts of a tiger raised by humans.
> 
> Credit to my friend Tempest, once again inspiring me for a fun little idea. Please enjoy!

“She is your little sister.” Mother says; she wears a smile of fondness and tenderness, though she is exhausted and smells faintly of blood, sweat, and salt-tears. In her arms is a fresh-born cub; her scent is stronger: stale blood, water, and something bitter.

Mother lowers her into new water and begins to clean away the stink. The little one fusses, tiny limbs wriggling in distress. White-Hair cocks her head in confusion; why does Mother harm the little cub? It is a contradictory behavior, for a mother to offend her cub. –But perhaps it is simply a test: a way to determine whether the little one is fit to press onward in life. White-Hair, herself, had to prove herself worthy as child to Mother and Father.

When Mother removes the little one, its skin smells sweet and warm. Mother wraps it – her – in second skins and sets her in a suspended nest of night and moon-rays. Mother settles down in a seat, near the nest, and White-Hair takes her place to Mother’s left. The silence is broken only by the soft thrum of her mother’s lulling voice: the same which once stole White-Hair from waking-thought to dream-sleep. Now, it is used to take the little one to the place of dreams.

Mother says the cub is named ‘moonlight’: a small drop of the great silver pool in a dark above, born to the season of white and cold. Mother is a wolf, and so now has birthed a wolf. White-Hair herself is not wolf, but raised to be among the pack just as this little one shall be. And so White-Hair names the cub Little Wolf, for she is meant to be of the moon and night.

***

Two moons have passed. It is now the night of Christ-mas: a night where the ground gleams white and silver, the air is cold, and the whole of Mother’s two-legged pack arrives in great droves. The two-legged ones bring offerings in brightly-colored wrappings, exchange long greetings, and drink the vine-fruit in great quantities. The Large One works tirelessly inside the cooking-den; the air is thick with wonderful smells. White-Hair licks at her salivating mouth, already in great anticipation of the offerings which will be made to her, later in the night.

Little Wolf has been handed from one pack-member to the next, examined and exclaimed and cuddled and squeezed. Now she is rested once more in her suspended nest: a small and fat thing wrapped in second skins and sleeping. She smells of Mother’s skin and milk. In the red-flower-light, bright in its stone-belly, Little Wolf’s face is washed gold and pink. Everything about her is tiny and naked, save for a single tuft of white sunlight atop her head.

White-Hair rests in careful consideration, thoughtful observation, of the little cub. Mother and Father have spent many an hour speaking to her, putting her in different skins and bathing her in the sweet-water. She is fed at Mother’s naked breast; nourished on her milk. Father does not feed her the life-blood, as he did White-Hair in the early days; White-Hair assumes it is too rich for Little Wolf’s belly. Perhaps, in her later years, Little Wolf too will be fed by Father on the life-blood.

She blinks. Little Wolf is crying.

White-Hair comes closer: smelling the air, smelling the tears, smelling Little Wolf everywhere. The sound is soft: a tiny mewl of distress. Little limbs wriggle free of the second skin and move through the air, reaching for something beyond her fragile form. White-Hair draws nearer, until her head looms above the little cub: a shadow blotting out the gold of red-flower-light.

Little Wolf’s eyes open. Now, White-Hair sees proof that Little Wolf is indeed of Mother and Father: two pools of blue, almost too large for so small a face, stare upward. Blink once, twice. Then, a tiny paw reaches up and sets to White-Hair’s nose. The paw, like the rest of Little Wolf’s form, is soft and hairless. There is something profoundly fragile about this little pink thing which smells of milk and sweet-water and Mother’s skin.

Something, White-Hair thinks, she might want to protect.

With utmost care, White-Hair fits her jaw around Little Wolf’s scruff and hoists her from the nest. The action is not borne of direct experience, but something innate to her. Her teeth rest at the smooth nakedness of Little Wolf’s throat but do not scrape or damage.

The red-flower-light cannot reach her in this place; she will grow cold. Closer to the stone-belly, the light is bright and hot to chase out the cold. White-Hair fits Little Wolf into the crux of her limbs, where her form will be balanced and kept warm by both flower-light and White-Hair’s fine coat. Little Wolf seems to no longer be interested in sleep, but in the world around her. Blue eyes stare, enraptured, at the red-flower-light and the walls of milk and the two-legged-ones wandering about with purposes of their own. Little paws shift though they cannot yet move with full freedom.

White-Hair bends her head and licks Little Wolf’s face. The little one coos: this time, a happy sound.

And all is right with the world.


End file.
